Understanding Digital Culture

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This is more than just another book on Internet studies. Tracing the pervasive influence of 'digital culture' throughout contemporary life, this text integrates socio-economic understandings of the 'information society' with the cultural studies approach to production, use, and consumption of digital media and multimedia. Refreshingly readable and packed with examples from profiling databases and mashups to cybersex and the truth about social networking, Understanding Digital Culture: #x2B22; crosses disciplines to give a balanced account of the social, economic and cultural dimensions of the information society #x2B22; illuminates the increasing importance of mobile, wireless and converged media technologies in everyday life #x2B22; unpacks how the information society is transforming and challenging traditional notions of crime, resistance, war and protest, community, intimacy and belonging #x2B22; charts the changing cultural forms associated with new media and its consumption, including music, gaming, microblogging and online identity #x2B22; illustrates the above through a series of contemporary, in-depth case studies of digital culture. This is the perfect text for students looking for a full account of the information society, virtual cultures, sociology of the Internet and new media.

Introduction

Revolutionary Technologies?

Determinisms

The Social Determinism of Technology

Technological Enablement

Base, Superstructure, Infrastructure

The Structure of the Book

Key Elements of Digital Media

Technical Processes

Digital

Networked

Interactive

Hypertextual/ Hypermediated

Automated

Databased

Cultural Forms

Context (or lack of it)

Variability

Rhizome

Process

Immersive Experiences

Telepresense

Virtuality

Simulation

Case Study: What Are Video Games? a Conundrum of Digital Culture

Are Video Games 'Narratives'?

Are Video Games 'Games'?

Are Video Games 'Simulations'?

Conclusion

Further Reading

Notes

The Economic Foundations of the Information Age

Post-Industrialism

Problems With The Post-Industrial Thesis

The Information Society

Post-Fordism and Globalization

Informationalism and the Network Society

The Structure of Networks

The Space Flows and Timeless Time

Network Economy and network Enterprise

Weightless Economies, Intellectual Property and the Commodification of Knowledge

Weightless Money

Weightless Services

Weightless Products

The Advantages of a Weightless Economy

(Intellectual) Property in a Weightless Economy

Information Feudalism

Conclusion

Further Reading

Convergence and the Contemporary Media Experience

Technological Convergence

Regulatory Convergence

Media Industry Convergence

Concerns About Media Convergence

Convergence Culture and the New Media Experience

The Creation of Cross-Media Experiences

Participatory Media Culture

Collective Intelligence

Producers, Consumers and 'Produsage'

Case Study: The Changing Culture Industry of Digital Music

The Diginisation of Music and its Discontents

'Mash-Ups' and the Crisis of Authorship in Digital Culture

Digital Music Cultures and Music Consumption

Conclusion

Further Reading

Digital Inequality: Social, Political and Infrastructural Contexts

'Digital Divides' and 'Access'

Domestic Digital Divides

Global Digital Divides

Mobile Phones, Access and the Developing World

Economic Reasons

Social Reasons

Legislative Reasons

The Benefits of Mobile Telephony for the Developing World

Conclusion

Further Reading

'Everyone is Watching': Privacy and Surveillance in Digital Life

The Changing Cultural Contexts of Privacy

Privacy as a Legal Construction: a Contradiction

Digital Surveillance: Spaces, Traces and Tools

Key Tools of Digital Surveillance

The Rise of Surveillance: Causes and Processes

Security Imperatives: Surveillance and The Nation-State

Surveillance, Control Imperatives and Bureaucratic Structures

Techno-logic

Commercial Imperatives and the Political economy of Surveillance

Marketing and Personal Data Collection

Databases, Data-mining, and Discourses

The Power of Profiling

Databases and Profiling: Pro's and con's

Why Care About Surveillance Society?

Conclusion

Further Reading

Information Politics, Subversion and Warfare

The Political Context of Information Politics

ICT-Enabled Politics

Visibility

Internal Organisation and Mobilisation

External Collaboration and Coordination

Flexible Organisation and 'Smartmobs'

Permanent Political Campaigns: Linear Collaboration

An Internet Public Sphere?

Digital Disobedience: ICT-Based Activism

ICTs and Mainstream Politics

Cyber Politics by Another Means: Cyber Warfare

Cyber Warfare as Network-Centric Warfare

Cyber Warfare as Information Warfare

Cyber Warfare as Espionage

Cyber Warfare as Economic Sabotage

Cyber Warfare as Critical Infrastructure Attack

Adjunct Attacks

Conclusion

Further Reading

Notes

Digital Identity

'Objects to Think With': Early Internet Studies and Poststructuralism

Personal Home Pages and the 'Re-Centring' of the Individual

Personal Blogging, Individualisation and the Reflexive Project of the Self

Social Networks, profiles and networked Identity

Avatar and Identity

Case Study: Cybersex, Online Intimacy and the Self

The Late-Modern Context of Love and Intimacy

Cybersex: a Novel Form of Intimacy

Conclusion

Further Reading

Notes

Social Media and the Problem of Community: Space, Relationships, Networks

Searching for Lost Community: Urbanisation, Space and Scales of Experience